Pacer calories wrong

gg12gg

I have started syncing my steps calories from the pacer app to MFP and it seems to be way off? My Apple Watch says I have burned 180 calories and the pacer app says 360 which seems unlikely as I have not had an active day. Just wondering how to fix this?

PAV8888

Pacer is showing your total calories burned for the day, not just your activity related calories

Slumbreon

If you have Pacer set to sync with Apple Health and Apple Watch - it should show your "Active Calories" as shown in Apple Health, that is my experience.

Talan79

My calories in Pacer match my move calories in Apple Watch. I didn’t workout today and didn’t log a workout. Just from steps. If you log a workout in Apple Watch then sync via Pacer, you get two adjustments. One from Pacer, one from Apple Health. I delete the Apple Health bc it’s a double entry. Your “move calories” on the watch will be your adjustment in MFP.

PAV8888

@heybales

Are you guys saying that PACER when synchronized with Apple **only** shows your *Move* or *Active* Calories as opposed to showing your *TOTAL* calories for the day?

This would be of concern when it comes to the recommendation to link PACER to MFP

Slumbreon

Yes, it shows just the active/move calories - which is exactly what I want. Pacer tracks the active calories and sends them to MFP as exercise.

Talan79

Mine only shows move calories according to Apple Watch.

PAV8888

I will wait for @heybales to discuss; but, if PACER is only transmitting the move / active calories as opposed to ALL the calories this would NOT be the correct value.

Well, it would be the correct value if we accept a "bastardization" of the apple values where instead of transmitting to MFP the Total Calories as detected by the apple watch (which apparently are available by opening the "activity app" on the iPhone and swiping from right to left on the graph in the move section, or by tapping the days or month at the top of the screen https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/17/apple-watch-how-to-check-your-passive-and-total-calories-burned/) what we are getting instead is the PACER BMR calories incremented by the Apple Move Calories.

If the value is not incremented at all by resting calories and all we're getting is the move calories... then we are underestimating by 1xBMR.

Now that I think about it a bit more, pacer used to start with the same BMR as MFP (Mifflin). So I guess that move+pacer base would be ok ... just not the exact values the watch detected.

heybales

Is that with the MFP app on the Apple watch?

I've been getting sense that MFP was getting around Apple choosing to send the wrong data (and MFP not standing up to it being wrong) by just using the Apple watch app.

It for sure is beyond the normal method for any other device.
Maybe they got it working correctly now when using just the watch with the app. Not the account synced - which there really isn't an option in MFP Apps - Apple isn't listed.

But I still haven't seen an Exercise Diary screen shot of these 2 adjustments, along with the Details in each one.

Awhile back I was under the impression 1 was the workout, 1 was the adjustment.
Just like MFP does with Garmin.





That along with what Apple is saying in all 3 rings at the time of the matching timestamp.
I guess also what Pacer is saying.

Like if I had Pacer in the mix above, and it sent a workout it got from wherever - once that workout hits MFP with timestamp it's being sent to Garmin.
And will overwrite whatever Garmin had for data in that chunk of time. Same with Fitbit.

I'm wondering if the Apple Health synced workout, because of having MFP on watch, is also synced back to Pacer to show up there as a workout, or replace what it had as a workout.

Talan79

With Apple Watch, you don’t need MFP app on the actual watch for things to work. Only if you want to use the watch to enter data into the app.
I took two screenshots from Sunday since it was an active day. I have MFP set to not very active since my entire move calories come over to MFP as an adjustment. You’ll see that my TDEE in MFP and Apple Watch are roughly the same. If I set my activity level to something higher in MFP, then the numbers would have more of a variance.

heybales

So that appears it is still doing it the same way.
Total calorie burn coming over to MFP, adjustment for the difference.

If a workout happened to show up from Apple Health, I'd assume like other trackers MFP would add it to the MFP calories burned for the day, and it would also show up under the Pacer total for the day, negating itself from the math at that point.

But you mentioned there is usually a 2nd adjustment based on Apple Health sending something?

And you don't use the MFP watch app?

PAV8888

You see where underneath the move calories it says in red total calories 2178?

That is the total number of your calories for the day according to your watch.

The elusive TDEE figure we are trying to extract from Apple.

I.e., THAT is the number that mfp expects and requires.

You see where Pacer sent in 2179 over to MFP?

(this 1 Cal difference could be either a rounding error between Apple and Pacer, or an indication that they're actually not calculating things in the exact same fashion and you should keep an eye to verify this down the road by looking at subsequent days)

Now mfp takes that 2179 (your total burn for the day according to the external tracker) and subtracts the calories that were assigned to you based on your originally chosen activity level.

And then adjusts that originally chosen activity level with an accounting adjustment which in this case equals 726 calories and equalizes the two figures (MFP+adjustments=tracker)

I think that the MOVE calories being the same as the adjustment is just a coincidence.

If it's not a coincidence it would ndicate that PACER/Apple? also start everyone at BMR*1.25 for the day before any "MOVE" Calories come in. This would be different than for example Fitbit which assigns 1*BMR when not detecting movement.

As a double check of whether MFP is operating as expected, your 1453 calories burned every day with zero exercise logged, should stay constant from day to day unless your weight changes in mfp or your activity level changes in MFP.

If that number changes from 1453 absent a weight change (or activity level change) this would be an indication that there's a feedback loop somewhere on MFP's side changing a number which is not expected to change (this is a nod of concern to the second adjustment you keep deleting and a double-check that it's not potentially causing any issues)

Talan79

I went back at looked at a few more days. Sometimes the sync bn Pacer and Watch is at 10 something Pm, then Pacer calories will be what it was at that time. If the sync is closer to midnight, it almost is exactly the same as move calories. But in the end, my adjustment will be my entire move calories.
For me it doesn’t matter...I’m not in a weight loss phase where I have to eat back my exercise calories. I could just not have the adjustment but I like seeing it.

Talan79

heybales wrote: »

So that appears it is still doing it the same way.
Total calorie burn coming over to MFP, adjustment for the difference.

If a workout happened to show up from Apple Health, I'd assume like other trackers MFP would add it to the MFP calories burned for the day, and it would also show up under the Pacer total for the day, negating itself from the math at that point.

But you mentioned there is usually a 2nd adjustment based on Apple Health sending something?

And you don't use the MFP watch app?

I don’t use MFP on my watch. I use the app on my phone. It’s only needed on the watch if I wanted to plan meals using the app on the watch. It’s too small and not easy like the app.

If I were to track a workout, run, walk, weights, I would have two adjustments. Pacer will show my move calories up to that time as an adjustment, then Apple Health would log an adjustment.
Each activity would be a separate adjustment. The Apple Health is a double since my watch is connected to Apple Health and already gave me credit for the activity.

PAV8888

Talan79 wrote: »

I went back at looked at a few more days. Sometimes the sync bn Pacer and Watch is at 10 something Pm, then Pacer calories will be what it was at that time. If the sync is closer to midnight, it almost is exactly the same as move calories. But in the end, my adjustment will be my entire move calories.
For me it doesn’t matter...I’m not in a weight loss phase where I have to eat back my exercise calories. I could just not have the adjustment but I like seeing it.

We have a nomenclature problem.

You're calling them "MOVE" calories because you are seeing them as "Total xx Cal" under the MOVE section and in RED.

What they actually are is your TOTAL Calories for the day. Your TDEE.

Your MOVE calories are the number you see further up. In your picture the 726 out of your 500 Cal target for the day.

So on the day in your picture you had:
726 Move Calories
117 minutes spent in exercise detected either via heart rate or movement or combination
14 hours spent standing during your day, and
a TDEE for the day of 2178 Cal which includes your resting, sitting, standing, exercise, move, and overall any and all Calories your watch detected.

Talan79

I went back and re read my post. I had a typo when talking about the sync and the calories matching. I wrote move but meant to say TDEE.
I’m only calling the exercise calories move calories, the 726.

Talan79

PAV8888 wrote: »

@heybales

Are you guys saying that PACER when synchronized with Apple **only** shows your *Move* or *Active* Calories as opposed to showing your *TOTAL* calories for the day?

This would be of concern when it comes to the recommendation to link PACER to MFP

I just noticed something with Pacer. You can select how active you are & it will show you the active calories from Apple Watch and NEAT I guess. I didn’t gym it today but had a bit over 8,000 steps. Apple Watch has my TDEE at 1743 and it’s almost 11:30pm.